


love comes in three ways, vapour burns and cackling teenagers

by kireinayuta



Series: say hey to the next door neighbour [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - High School, Established Relationship, Everyone Is Gay, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, Mutual Pining, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, chenle is annoying, doyoung is hot headed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-05
Updated: 2018-07-05
Packaged: 2019-06-05 18:22:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15176621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kireinayuta/pseuds/kireinayuta
Summary: Taeyong decides to give Taeil a helping hand at the café while Jeno, Renjun and Jaemin eat food and be annoying.





	love comes in three ways, vapour burns and cackling teenagers

"Just ask him out," Taeyong rolls his eyes, taking a cloth and wiping an Elmer's flask dry. "It's not that hard." He adds in a mumble.

Doyoung all but scoffs.

" _'Not that hard'_ ," he mimics sourly, pursing his lips in annoyance as he throws Taeyong a glare. "Does it seem that easy to you?"

Tentatively, Taeyong looks over at Doyoung, and when he sees that the latter is still glaring at him, he gulps and chooses his words wisely.

"Since it looks like you're going to beat my ass, I'm gonna say no," the pink haired male settles on saying while nodding, putting the dry Elmer's flask away in it's designated spot on the lab bench. "Not that I'd know anyways." He admits, shrugging.

He can literally _feel_ Doyoung's piercing gaze burn through his skull and brain.

"Exactly. Not that you'd know, Taeil hyung all but swooned you off your feet," Doyoung says exasperatedly. "He opened up a café _for_ _you_. Named it after _your_ favourite fruit." He groans, aggressively throwing his lab coat at the elder's face. Taeyong is too slow to catch the coat before it land on top of his head. He yanks it off of himself and goes to hang it with his.

"Yeah. He's a cute hyung like that," Taeyong shrugs again, a smile subconsciously making its way onto his lips at the thought of his boyfriend.

Doyoung notices this.

"Stop smiling goddamnit!" He yells, making his way past Taeyong by walking faster. For a small man, Doyoung held a lot of anger inside of his body. Taeyong's told him multiple times it isn't healthy, but he's not surprised that Doyoung doesn't listen to him.

"You're awfully rude for a best friend," Taeyong pouts, willing his legs to step in front of each other faster so that he could catch up to Doyoung. "It's not my fault Jungwoo has your panties in a bunch."

Doyoung groans again, turning to glare at Taeyong again.

"Don't even speak the devil's name," he spits, finally walking side by side with Taeyong as the two of them make their way out of the university. "God, I'll kill him one day."

Taeyong frowns.

If he's not mistaken, this isn't how Doyoung should be behaving if he likes Jungwoo.

"Are you sure you like him? I don't think death threats are a way of showing affection," he mumbles.

If Doyoung could, be would smack the top of Taeyong's head, but he can't because of respect and bullshit.

Before Doyoung can reply with some smart ass answer, his phone is ringing an annoying ringtone which he personally set for Jungwoo's contact.

"That song is so fucking annoying," Taeyong groans. "Who is it anyways?"

Doyoung deadpans as he shows Taeyong the screen of his phone (the elder's eyes bulge out of its sockets before his face takes on a confused expression), and then answers the incoming call.

"What?" He seethes into the phone, and Taeyong is so taken aback, and he's not even the one Doyoung is talking to.

Taeyong thinks Doyoung has a problem with communicating his feelings, and he'd like to have a conversation about that with his best friend later on. Preferably over coffee.

"Chenle _what_?" He angrily yells into the phone, and Taeyong isn't even Chenle, Doyoung's nuisance of the a younger brother, but he feels his blood run cold from Doyoung's tone. "I'll be there in three minutes." And then Doyoung hangs up.

"What's going—"

"I'm gonna go beat Chenle's adopted ass," Doyoung groans, running his palms over his face, annoyed. Taeyong doesn't question it, since Chenle always seemed capable of striking a special nerve in Doyoung which no one else was able to strike. "I'll call you later," he grumbles to Taeyong before turning on his heel and running back towards their neighbourhood. Taeyong would accompany him, if he hadn't already promised Taeil that he'd stop by the café for a few hours to help before closing.

The simple thought of the café made Taeyong so happy, _Taeil's_ café, _their_ café.

 _Cherry_ , Taeil had named it, taken from Taeyong's favourite fruit. The café's specialty dish being a cherry cheesecake which no one could compare to in Seoul.

Even though his boyfriend had a handful of kids he could pick from to work at their store, Taeyong still always loved lending a helping hand. After a day's worth of hard work put in by Taeil, Taeyong always felt the need to contribute in some way.

The walk to Cherry from university isn't that long, a good twelve minutes if there were a few stoplights to wait at. Normally Taeyong would play his music, he already has his earbuds untangled and plugged into his phone, but just as he was going the tap on the icon for his music app, his friend's face takes up the entirety of his phone screen with an incoming call.

"Jaehyunnie?" Taeyong answers softly, eyebrows furrowing because Jaehyun never phone calls him, video calls and text messages are more frequent.

"Taeyong hyung~" Jaehyun whines, and the elder already has a slight idea about where this was going to go. All of a sudden, the idea of hanging up and ignoring Jaehyun seemed like a good idea. "I'm bored."

When Jaehyun was bored, the entire world was off its axis.

When Jaehyun was bored, the person who was in charge of curing his boredom felt like dying was a better option than putting up with Jung Jaehyun.

When Jaehyun was bored, it means not _one_ , but _both_ of his significant others were too occupied for him.

When Jaehyun was bored, Taeyong wanted to jump into the Han river because anything was better than putting up with a whiny, stubborn Jaehyun.

Not that he didn't adore Jaehyun though, his friend was his cute dongsaeng. But that didn't mean he wasn't annoying.

"Jae, I'm busy—" But of course, Jaehyun wasn't having any of it. As per usual.

"What about me!" He cries, and Taeyong winces because of how loud Jaehyun's normally tolerable voice was ringing in his ears. "I'm not busy, and that's the problem!" Taeyong sighs, and before he could say anything, his phone is beeping. He takes the device out of his pocket to see he has another incoming call, and couldn't be more grateful for his annoying younger brother to call him.

"Mark's calling I gotta go!" Taeyong says quickly into the speaker, rapidly accepting Mark's call so that he wouldn't have to hear Jaehyun's whining. "Thank God you called, Jaehyun was _bored_ ," Taeyong sighs gratefully, a smile finally adorning his face since he's escaped Jaehyun and his antics. Mark tsks from the other end of the line.

"You owe me big time then," he says, and Taeyong would've said something about how manipulation and blackmail were not the answer, but his younger brother sighs and he's suddenly super attentive. "Donghyuck is leaving for Jeju for a week." Taeyong can hear the pout in Mark's voice.

"What do you want me to do about it?" Not that Taeyong has anything against Donghyuck, the boy was so sweet and his smile was contagious, but when Mark brings him up in every instance, Taeyong can't help but feel a bit irritated when Mark turns the most trivial of matters involving Donghyuck into large problems.

Mark won't admit that he's head over heels, fall onto your face, head swimming up their ass, in love with their neighbour Donghyuck, but it's okay because Taeyong already admitted it for him.

"Buy me ice cream? Drop it off before you get home, please~" Mark whines, and Taeyong has to fight the grimace of disgust which threatens to take over his facial features, since he was in public after all.

"Can't. I'm working at Cherry till night," Taeyong explains, preening his head a bit and seeing the outline of Taeil's café in the near distance. "I'll take you out on the weekend Minhyung," he negotiates.

But Mark was an annoying brat.

"You owe me double if it's the weekend," he says heatedly into the phone, and Taeyong would scold him for even thinking about talking to his elder that way, but he's well aware of the fact that his younger brother is just hot headed from the news Donghyuck gave him.

"Okay," Taeyong simply sighs, but then quickly going back to smiling when he sees Cherry right across the street. "I gotta go Minhyung, I'm at Taeil's."

" _Taeil, Taeil, Taeil_ ," Mark mocks, and Taeyong can just imagine the ugly expression on his face as he repeats his lover's name. "Always talking about Taeil! Taeil this and Taeil that! You're such a _freak_ Taeyong—"

Taeyong hangs up before his brother can continue being jealous of his _established_ relationship with Taeil, pocketing his phone and wrapping his earbuds around his fingers before stuffing them into a pocket too, opening the front doors to Cherry with the brightest smile he's put on all day. Granted, he was in Doyoung's sour company for the whole day.

But the moment he steps into Cherry, his spirits are lifted tenfold. The homey aroma which reminded him of Taeil, the bustling workers who were just sweet high schoolers, the packed tables and art decor on the wall (painted by one of the high schoolers), had Taeyong's heart soaring with pride and joy for what was Taeil's café. Their café.

"Taeyong hyung!" Across the café, near the back wall where a giant mural of South Korea was painted, is one of the high school employees, Lee Jeno. Taeyong waves to him, and while making his way to Jeno, he notices two other kids bustling around the café, busy with their trays filled with porcelain plates and mugs.

Jaemin and Renjun.

Jeno's significant others.

"Why aren't you working?" Taeyong asks with mock seriousness as he takes in how Jeno had an empty tray and was smiling till his heart's content. "Seems short staffed."

Jeno smiles, sheepish at that, and Taeyong would coo over the high school student if it weren't for hearing the clatter of Jaemin almost dropping an entire serving of iced white chocolate drinks and three plates of cherry pie.

"Chenle broke Jisung's window with a rock and Doyoung hyung is gonna beat his ass so he can't really find refuge here," Jeno explains shortly, noticing someone signalling him from behind Taeyong. "Gotta get working hyung!" Jeno leaves, and Taeyong makes his way to the back, inside the kitchen where he knows he'll see Taeil either piping icing onto cupcakes or arranging slices of cake onto a showcase stand.

"Hey Yongie," he mumbles when Taeyong so much as opens the door to the kitchen, the elder not moving his eyes from where he's determined to make every single slice of this chocolate almond cake completely symmetrical. He doesn't need to look up anyways. Taeyong smells so much like chlorine, Taeil instantly knows it's him. Not even a swimmer could reek that much of chlorine, only his biochem major of a boyfriend can.

"Illie hyung," Taeyong smiles happily, trotting his way over to Taeil to nuzzle his face into the elder's mop of brown hair.

Yeah.

Coming back to Taeil at the end of the day was the best part of his day.

"Don't even try baby, I have a knife in my hand," Taeil murmurs, completely ignoring the boy who now has a pout adorning his lips. Sometimes, Taeil could be mean. His sweets and desserts were somehow always priority over giving his boyfriend a welcome kiss.

"Hyung~" But Taeyong still whines, still hugs around Taeil's neck and still pouts because he wants Taeil's attention. He goes a whole day without his boyfriend's voice, touch or face and then comes back to this kind of treatment. Taeyong would beat Taeil's ass if he didn't love the elder so.

Silent minutes to go slowly, Taeyong doesn't bother keeping track of how many minutes, but when Taeil finally, _finally_ puts his knife down and turns to face Taeyong with his smile that puts the sun to shame, Taeyong feels like he's aged fifteen years. He doesn't say anything, he only moves his head forward, pressing his chocolate flavoured lips (he probably ate some of that stupid cake) against Taeyong's cold ones.

"You smell like a swimming pool," the elder smiles, a hand coming up to card through his boyfriend's bubblegum hair. Taeyong almost purrs. Taeil has really good hands for scalp massages.

"Sodium chloride," the younger boy mumbles, the chemicals briefly explaining why he smelt the way he did. "That was the topic for today." His lame, absolutely lame boyfriend actually enjoyed chemistry and biology, which is why he finds himself to be majoring in that field.

"You're a nerd," is something Taeil never fails to remind him of, even now, when they're hugging in the middle of his empty café kitchen, Taeil still has the time to remind Taeyong that he's a goof and studies too hard. "But why are you here and not home?" Taeyong was waiting for that question to slip past Taeil's lips, was waiting for Taeil to ask why he was at Cherry and not home, since he loved to shower after a long day of classes.

He sighs before detaching himself from his boyfriend, reaching behind him to grab a red apron from the hooks on the wall.

"Gonna help. Heard about Chenle," he shrugs, and Taeil doesn't need to know that he had no idea about Chenle's situation until he stepped foot into the café.

"You're sweet," Taeil simply smiles, nodding in approval of Taeyong's choice towards how he was going to spend his evening. Taeil goes to put away the knife he's used and then takes the fancy platter in his hands and places it on the front counter so that the next time Renjun comes into the kitchen, he'll know to put the cake in the display window.

"Illie hyung," Taeyong's soft voice calls, and Taeil can't tell if it's the cute nickname Taeyong made for him or the way his voice sounds which makes his heart feel full to the brim. "Tie it."

The elder in the kitchen sighs, going behind Taeyong to take the two strings of fabric and tie them into a taught bow behind Taeyong's back. For good measure, he pecks the nape of Taeyong's neck. The latter giggles, always having been sensitive there.

"Now get out there," Taeil urges, shoving Taeyong out of the kitchen by pushing his back. "You always seem to draw more customers in with how cute you look. Jeno does too, so with the both of you, today's sales are gonna be good."

Taeyong rolls his eyes, but smiles nonetheless, heading out into the business that was Taeil's café.

Hours go by like minutes, and before Taeyong knows it, it's an hour before closing time.

"Go home," Taeyong says to Jaemin, clapping him in the back as he arranges some mugs into cabinets. "Take them with you, it's late."

Jaemin smiles, and Taeyong thinks it's really cute, before shaking his head.

"We can finish," he assures, yelling across the kitchen to Jeno. "Right Jeno?" He hollers, getting a reply just as loud.

"He didn't even hear what we said," Taeyong mumbles, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion. Jaemin shrugs.

"He always agrees with me."

"Must be nice," Taeyong grumbles, thinking back to all the times Taeil had to be stubborn about everything.

"Yongie baby! Come help me with cleaning the dishes!" Taeil's voice calls from the front of the kitchen, and Jaemin sends Taeyong a smile before letting him go.

Jogging up to the front, Taeyong listens to Taeil tell him what to do, even if the younger has helped Taeil with all the café responsibilities before.

"Hyung, I know," Taeyong rolls his eyes, keeping his tone lighthearted though, he didn't need Taeil assuming he was trying to be a smart ass. "Help the kids outside," he suggests, cocking his head towards the kitchen door. "And maybe send them home. It's late, and I'll help."

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Taeil fusses, ever so caring. "Remember that there's already a load in the steamer and that you take it out—"

"Yes, yes Taeil hyung, I know," Taeyong assures, bumping hips with the elder and sending him out of the kitchen. Taeyong thinks Taeil worries too much, since he had a lot of experience working in the café anyways.

Taeil opened it up for Taeyong in the first place. The least the latter could do was help out. So he busies himself with making sure all the plates, the bowls, the mugs and utensils were squeaky clean and shiny before putting them in their designated spots for the next morning so that it was easier for Taeil, with the occasional flip of his head to keep his pink bangs from falling into his eyes.

He opens the steamer and immediately regrets it when the steam soaks his face in water, and he holds up a hand to block his face from getting scalded. In retrospect, it wasn't the the smartest move, considering how now his arm was taking the heat, considering how the skin was now molten because of the intensity of the heat.

Quickly, Taeyong shuts the steamer, moving away from that general area as he examines the damage done to his left arm. The skin on his forearm was red and completely burned, mocking him because of how red it actually was.

"Yongs, I sent Jaemin, Jeno and Renjunnie home, so it's just— Taeyong!" Taeil gasps, coming into the kitchen and then seeing how scalded Taeyong's arm was. The younger's eyes widen behind his fringe, realizing he was in deep shit for burning himself like this.

"H-Hyung," he stutters, feeling embarrassed since he couldn't even complete the simple task of putting the dishes away properly without getting injured. "Hyung it's no big deal."

"No big deal?" Taeil asks, cocking up an eyebrow as he stares at the Taeyong's arm. "This is gonna scar if you don't take care of it now." Taeyong pouts, he doesn't want a huge scar on his arm, and then Taeil is zooming out of the kitchen, so Taeyong is just confused.

"Taeil hyung!" He calls, a whine in his tone as he pouts harder at the closed door of the kitchen.

"I'm just closing up!" Taeil calls back, the words surprising Taeyong.

"Closing?" He yells back, quirking his eyebrows up in confusion. There were fifty more minutes until closing time. "Why do you need to close?"

"So I can take care of your incompetent ass, duh," Taeil says when he's back into the kitchen, putting a few trays off to the side of the counter before reaching up into a cabinet near the back. "Sit on the counter," he instructs, and Taeyong listens, placing himself on top of the counter. Taeil comes back into Taeyong's view with a first aid kit, _of course_ Taeil has one of those in the kitchen, and he opens it on the counter beside the younger. With the kit open, Taeyong sees all the bandages, medical tape, ointments, antiseptics and needles for amateur stitching. He watches as Taeil takes out an ointment for burns and a cream for scarring, uncapping the former first.

It hurts when Taeil applies the ointment on and he hisses and feels his eyes water, but the feeling dulls a bit when Taeil blows on his skin to dry the ointment before applying to cream.

"I would baby you, but it's your fault," Taeil shrugs, dodging Taeyong's foot which made its way to kick him. When he fails at that, Taeyong wraps his legs around the elder's waist and draws him in close, locking his ankles behind Taeil's back.

"I am a baby though," Taeyong whines, keeping the pout which Taeil finds so cute etched onto his face. Taeil sighs while applying the scarring cream (which also makes tears spring to Taeyong's eyes), rolling his eyes and looking at Taeyong, who's staring at him.

"You're 23 Yong."

Taeyong huffs, age is just a number, before watching sadly as Taeil blows again on his arm to dry the scarring cream, and then wrap bandages around his arm. It was tight and it felt like Taeil was going to cut off his blood circulation, but he wasn't that evil, so Taeyong knew he was fine.

"All done," Taeil claps when the bandage is secure, putting everything away in the box in an organized fashion, returning the kit to where he found it. Taeyong was left with a numb and painful left arm.

"Vapour burns, am I right?" The younger jokes, trying to bring some lightheartedness back into the kitchen. Taeil simply quirks an eyebrow up at him.

"Vapour burns have melted skin off of people's bodies before. Kun deals with them," Taeil says in a know-it-all tone, referencing their nurse of a friend who works at the local hospital, Kun. "You should get him to look at that," Taeil suggests, cocking his head towards Taeyong's arm.

"Maybe," the younger mumbles, untying his apron and making his way around to the back of the kitchen to get his bag and sweater. "Can we go home hyung?" Taeyong is still pouting, Taeil will pretend like he doesn't know the reason why, so the latter nods, taking off his own apron and making way to collect his belongings.

"Come on, _baby_." Taeyong has now stopped pouting, and is happily linking arms with Taeil as they exit the kitchen while turning off the lights and locking the door. They proceed to stack chairs upside down onto the tables so that the floor was clear for mopping the next morning. Taeyong turns off the lights in the café and then they both head outside, Taeil locks up the doors to the establishment.

"Good day?" Taeyong asks once they start their walk back home, a mere seven minutes away from the café. Taeil hums.

"Real good. Y'know, besides your vapour burn."

 

»»————-　✼　————-««

 

"Hyung is so nice," Jaemin sighs, stretching his arms above his head while getting into the backseat of Jeno's car. "Or maybe it's Taeyong hyung's influence. I remember Johnny hyung saying that Taeil hyung was like an old crabby grandma before he met Taeyong hyung."

Renjun sighs, but an adoring smile is on his lips as he turns around from the front seat to look at Jaemin.

"Do you ever shut up?"

Jaemin pouts at that, and Jeno sees it through the rearview mirror. After all three of them were buckled in with their seatbelts, Jeno and Renjun start to have a conversation, and Jaemin was listening, he truly was, until they started talking about how to pay the bills and then he was just out of it.

"— by the third of the month, don't you think Nana?"

When Renjun doesn't get a response, or even a hum of acknowledgement or anything like that, he turns around to see that Jaemin has fallen asleep, head titled back while he exposes his neck and snores softly.

"Okay, that's kind of rude," Jeno says under his breath, and he was expecting Renjun to nod mockingly in agreement with him, or something along those lines, and he bets he would've if he wasn't so busy staring at Jaemin. Jeno would stare too. It's just that he kind of has the lives of two of his favourite people in his hands, so, he'll stare at Jaemin when the situation is more appropriate, when he wasn't driving at night.

Once he parks his car into his designated spot, both Jeno and Renjun take off their seatbelts before they both head into the back seats of the car, each of them flanking Jaemin's left and right side.

"Na—" Renjun starts, poking Jaemin's right cheek.

"Na." Jeno finishes, poking Jaemin's left cheek.

"Nana~" They then both chorus in unison, smiling to themselves when Jaemin starts to stir.

"Wait, hold up, hold up, hold up," Renjun gasps, taking a still groggy Jaemin's face between his hands. He comes up real close to the younger's puffy face, and Jeno is just confused towards if Renjun was gonna stare at him or kiss him. "Are you wearing lip tint?"

Suddenly, Jaemin is _very_ awake and _very_ aware of what is going on, if his blush is anything to go by.

"N-No," he stutters poorly, pushing Renjun's hands off of him and unbuckling his seatbelt.

"Then why are they so pink?" Jeno asks, also noticing how Jaemin's lips didn't look like his natural lip colour.

"I bit them," the youngest easily lies, shoving Jeno out of the way. "Can we go home? I'm sleepy hyung." Jaemin didn't have to ask, Jeno knows that, Renjun knows that, and Jaemin himself knows that, so him asking was clearly an excuse. For now, the elder two will let it go.

After the short two minute walk to their apartment, Jeno and Renjun immediately toe off their shoes and sigh contently, both exhausted.

It was a busy day for all three of them, Renjun dealing with the stress that university obviously brought, while Jeno and Jaemin dealt with the endless projects and assignments which came from being seniors in high school. Adding their shifts at Cherry, and the three of them were just glad they were home.

"Junnie what's for dinner?" Jeno asks with a pout, patting his stomach which he claims to be empty, acting like he hadn't scarfed down four cupcakes and two iced teas at Taeil's during his break.

"I'll heat up some pizza," Renjun shrugs. "Better finish it before it goes bad." Jeno hums, agreeing with the menu for dinner, before heading deeper into the apartment to wash up. When he's walking down the hallway to get to the bedroom which the three of them share, Jaemin frantically swiping something across his lips in the bathroom mirror catches his attention.

"You're a fucking liar," Jeno cackles, opening the bathroom door wider in order to properly expose his boyfriend. "That is lip tint!"

Jaemin blushes, more ferociously than when he was in the car, and all but shoves Jeno out of the bathroom, mumbling some curses and going off about privacy.

Jeno has tears in his eyes by the time he's finally in their room with his night clothes picked out, and he reminds himself to compliment how pretty the lip tint looked on Jaemin before he went to sleep in order to not make the younger feel bad.

When Jaemin enters their bedroom, with his lips back to their natural colour, he completely ignores Jeno by rapidly changing into his night clothes and then he's blasting off to the kitchen to probably give Renjun a helping hand, or take over so that the eldest boy could wash up as well.

Either way, it has Jeno shaking his head in amusement as he makes his way to the bathroom to take care of his nightly skin routine.

The three of their routines are practically identical, washing their faces with soap, and then facial scrub, finishing with hydrating lotion.

Once he feels refreshed and ready to eat, he exits the bathroom and passes Renjun along the way back to the kitchen.

"It was lip tint," he whispers to Renjun so that Jaemin doesn't hear and start another fit. Renjun smirks at what Jeno says, pecking the younger's cheek before telling him to help Jaemin finish setting up and then going to freshen up himself.

Jeno hums a tune as he walks to their kitchen, noticing that Jaemin wasn't in it. When he walks further past and through the kitchen, he spots their youngest placing a jug of cold water in the middle of the table. Jeno notices that the only thing which isn't already on the table is napkins; so he fetches some before placing them next to each of the three plates.

The two of them both sit down after the table is set, and Jeno notices how Jaemin can't meet his eyes, and how a pink hue is adorning his cheeks.

Jeno thinks Jaemin is really cute, although he portrays himself to be someone who seemed cool and easy going. Jaemin might be a little more stubborn than easy going, and he was cool five percent of the time, but other then that, he was an baby. An adorable baby. Jeno and Renjun's adorable baby.

"It looks good you know," Jeno smiles, taking Jaemin hand from under the table.

Jaemin usually did this, tries out new things he wasn't completely confident in. It happened when he decided to change his fashion style, it happened when he decided to get his left earlobe pierced twice and it happened when he dyed his hair light brown. All three decisions ended up making Jaemin feel better about himself, so there was no need for Jeno or Renjun to protest. Exactly like this situation. Lip tint seemed to make Jaemin feel prettier, and neither Jeno nor Renjun were in position to revoke Jaemin of that satisfaction and happiness.

"You look pretty with or without your lips tinted," Jeno shrugs, making sure he didn't seem biased towards Jaemin in lip tint.

 _Whatever makes Jaemin and Renjun feel good about themselves_ , is something Jeno always sticks to thinking about before giving his opinion on anything involving his two lovers. Jaemin doesn't even get time to say anything before the sound of Renjun's feet padding across the hardwood of their floors is becoming louder and clearer, signalling that the eldest was near.

Soon enough, Renjun sits himself in his designated spot around their circular table, clapping his hands excitedly since he was hungry, because, unlike Jeno, he didn't leech off of the desserts at Taeil's café.

"Let's eat!" He says happily, already taking a monster bite out of his first slice of pizza.

Both Jeno and Jaemin can agree that Renjun looked really adorable with his cheeks filled with food and eyes shining because that's how satisfying his hunger made him feel.

Normally, it doesn't take someone forty five minutes to finish three slices of pizza, but when you're Jeno, Renjun and Jaemin, it does.

Jeno starts off their dining table conversation with how he forgot he didn't finish his history homework until the teacher asked the class to hand it in. He then proceeds to explain how he made Donghyuck pull out his tube of fake blood he had for situations exactly like this one, and how the two of them bullshitted their way out of handing in homework by chilling in the courtyard until that dreadful class was over.

Jaemin was cackling like a hyena when Jeno was done telling his story, while Renjun heaved a sigh of disappointment and started lecturing Jeno about how skipping classes wasn't a good habit and how he couldn't do that when he became a university student.

Jaemin continues their dining table conversation with how his art teacher placed his painting of Seoul's skyline in the display case in front of the art office, next to all the other iconic art works the teachers like to keep and flaunt.

Jeno and Renjun were both extremely proud of their younger boyfriend, the both of them giving Jaemin greasy kisses on the lips.

Renjun decides to finish off their dining table conversation over how his economics professor showed up nine minutes later than usual with a huge coffee stain on his white shirt and a pissy attitude.

Renjun's story makes both Jeno and Jaemin petrified to graduate and enter their university lives. Renjun tries to assure them that it actually wasn't _that_ bad and that he was exaggerating. Just a bit.

Once all that's left is their empty glasses along with their empty plates, Jaemin offers to wash the dishes while Renjun and Jeno get ready for bed. The elder two head off, entering the bathroom together and brushing their teeth silently as they flirtatiously wink at each other through the mirror.

Once they're done, Jaemin is also done washing the dishes, and he turns off the lights in the dining room, kitchen, and hallway before joining the two of them in the bathroom. Jaemin starts brushing his teeth, not paying mind to his two boyfriends who simply stand there, sending Jaemin some incredible extravagant winks through the mirror.

Jaemin tries not to choke on toothpaste while his two doofs continue with their ministrations.

Once their youngest was finished brushing his teeth, all three of them walk to their shared bedroom.

The main focus of their bedroom wasn't the millions of fairy lights Renjun and Jaemin insisted on draping all over the walls, no, it was the king sized bed.

It took a lot of time for all three of them to save up enough money for that bed, mattress, box spring, frame, and even sheets and a blanket. But it was worth it. Better than squeezing into a queen size bed or pushing two beds together, like how they used to.

"Nono's turn in the middle," Jaemin yawns tiredly, stretching his arms out while already claiming the left side of the bed.

Jeno is enthusiastic about middling for the night, even if it happens every two nights, but still.

He happily slides in beside Jaemin, stretching his arms out, and as expected, both Renjun and Jaemin cling onto each side of him. Gladly, Renjun already turned off the lights and closed the door before coming to bed, which left Jeno with a smile while his two cute boyfriends curled up into his left and right sides.

Jeno knows that his arms are gonna be numb tomorrow morning, but he didn't care when he's so happy in the moment.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading :)


End file.
